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If there’s anything I hate more than, exactly same startups launching exactly same services, through an exactly same pricing and marketing strategy, its spam. Spam come in different shades of dark annoyance – via emails, unwanted calls, SMSes, popup ads, banner ads and even snail mail occasionally. From a consumer’s angle, there literally is no circumstance whatsoever, when he/she would wants to be bombarded with advertisements or constant reminder of capitalism.

From a business angle, marketing effectively actually matters much more than the product/services you offer – so naturally you’d want to advertise to the maximum extent possible. Where do you draw the line between annoying disruptive marketing and acceptable reminders? I think the sweet spot lies in Push Notifications.

Push notifications are one of the easiest, free ways to encourage mobile engagement on your device & other platforms. Here are some tried and tested ways your push notifications can be more effective:

Timing matters strongly

Push notifications are essentially triggers to help the user remember you exist – and using your platform is an option. If users get a notification to use a food delivery message anytime before 1PM, it’s sure to be ignored. An ideal time would be just before lunch time and right after office hours get over – when munchies are painfully high. Target your timings according to when it’s most likely for users to engage.

Personalize the message

A simple way is to address the user by their name. An even better way is to look for patterns in the user’s usage – why not personalize a simple a push notification of your food startup with something that instantly clicks with the user such as “Is your lunch option not worthy of your time? Try some Tikkas instead!” Using patterns based on a user’s usage, you can safely predict when, and what a user uses your opt for – use this information to your advantage.

Humor is your friend

While risky for the short run, you should definitely consider adding puns and witty one-liners in your push notifications. Nothing makes it across social media, better than a screenshot of something funny (where you’d get viral publicity on your own). Instead of being too in your face and cutting straight to the point, using humor is very advantageous for getting the user to open your app.

Don’t be too pushy with push notifications

We get it – you want to make daily push notifications, even more than once a day for your users to use your platform. In all likeliness, all that results is the user disabling push notifications completely for your app. Stick with occasional push notifications, especially when there’s a long period of no usage.

Promos work great here

An instant flash of sales, discount, freebies or something genuinely new on your platform would excite the consumer and a push notification is a good way to remind users. There’s a new cashback on your platform? Push it. There’s a flash sale happening? Flash it. You just changed the logo color of your app? Please don’t push it.